Let’s take a step back. We are into the second quarter of 2009 and witnessing some of the highest adoption of social media tools ever. For companies, it is time to start looking if social media is panning out like expected. This could be a blog post on metrics and results, but I’m thinking that it may be time to look at how easy it is to manage social media across the vast number of tools and properties. After all, isn’t part of marketing effectiveness efficiency?
Even in my own small and limited experience I have management problems. There are a variety of tools and properties I utilize to connect with you: blogs, Twitter, LinkedIn, blog communities, and a variety of analytic tools to track progress. To be honest, it is a lot of work to manage all these tools. No single venue provides everything and each offers a different twist on reaching and connecting with others. The best way for me to manage everything is a big toolbar folder on my browser where I keep bookmarks for all the social media tools and communities I participate in. Then I have other ways to manage content and connections within each community. In addition, I’m reusing content across multiple platforms duplicating steps.
This is all very inefficient.
Back in the day (wasn’t that only 3 years ago?) the best marketing solution out there was the CRM system. Today that solution seems ancient and out dated. Funny that a solution that is all about managing customer relationships is now almost a dinosaur in our social media marketing world. Regardless, what is great about our CRM systems is that it can be a one stop shop for our customers lists, campaign activities, communication platform, and analytics platform. In addition, it allows marketers to share program and campaign assets, communications and results with each other. The biggest frustration is that after standardizing on CRM, I now have little use for it other than traditional marketing which is becoming less and less. CRM has turned into more of a storage site than an solution.
However, I don’t think CRM is dead. I think it offers a starting point to aggregate our social media marketing efforts. Where it created efficiency in process, cataloguing, and communication, it can do the same to streamline our social media activities. Salesforce.com has already integrated Twitter into its customer service platform. Having the same ability to push blogs, microblogs, and participate in community discussions and forums would be a great next step. Having the ability to also post interactive content like presentations and podcasts from a single point would also be better than having to go to YouTube, iTunes, and Slideshare as well as posting to my own website and corporate social network.
Maybe the answer isn’t completely held within the realm of CRM, but as a mainstay of marking, it certainly is a great starting point to help marketers participate socially with customers effectively and efficiently. If it could consolidate participation and management of social media, reduction in redundancy and improvement in consolidated analytics would greatly improve ROI.
Filed under: b2b, customer relationship, marketing operations, marketing technology, social media, crm, marketing effectiveness, marketing efficiency, marketing management, marketing operations, marketing technology, social media, social media marketing
CRM systems seem like a good place to put interactions and responsive tools – but there is some pressure out there from the community.
Talking about a brand doesn’t necessarily mean that you want the brand to talk to you about your comments.
Some see this as heavy handed and instrusive – so there’s a balance to strike. I certainly don’t think that automated responses – the mainstay of some of the automation systems – have any place in the online world.
I think that where CRM fails is in the reporting and aggregation of the “buzz” or social media context information around a brand. This data is very interesting and can be actioned in less explicit ways.
I agree that automating responses, this isn’t where I’d like to go either. But, having a central place to see all posts and comments to personally respond to would alleviate jumping from site to site and aggregating to a primary place for a full discussion.
You are right when you say that CRM fails in reporting and “buzz” aggregation. That is my biggest headache right now.
Overall, a single platform that manages your communities, social media content, discussions, and reporting centrally to avoid jumping from from place to place would be my salvation. Maybe this is the real CRM 2.0? Or, maybe it’s something that sits on top of it and consolidates social media with customer management systems?
And this is why I read brsin-vibe.com.Incredible post.